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Robert Badgerow took the stand at his murder trial in Kitchener and once again told a jury he did not rape or kill Diane Werendowicz in 1981.
Badgerow was asked, if he didn’t kill or rape Werendowicz, why was his semen found inside her when she was found dead? He said, I had consensual sex with her in the back seat of my car. He says he had sex with Werendowicz within about 20 minutes of meeting her for the first time in the parking lot of a bar. He invited her to smoke a joint in his car. He doesn’t remember going into the bar, though in previous trials he testified he did. He doesn’t remember how they got their clothes off or into the back seat of the 2-door car.
He says he did not make this suspicious 911 call from Dofasco’s gate six phone booth, full of details only the killer would know, though he admits he was working steps away at the time. He was asked to pronounce the word creek on the stand and said creek, not crick like the 911 caller. Badgerow also said if he didn’t see the picture, he wouldn’t know that it was him talking at his 1982 wedding. He can’t recognize his own voice. Some of his best friends were certain it was his voice on the 911 call, but Badgerow said, “that’s their opinion.”
Badgerow was known as muscle man in high school; a champion wrestler and baseball player too. He had about four anonymous one night stands, he told the jury, including Werendowicz, while engaged to his first wife. He said he would never have remembered Diane Werendowicz’s name or face if he hadn’t become a suspect in her death 17 years later.
Badgerow seemed to get a bit flustered at the end of his cross exam as crown Cheryl Gzik questioned inconsistencies in his testimony, or why he can’t remember any details of his encounter with Werendowicz. She said if his story were true, Diane would have had to have gotten dressed after without putting her underwear on before she walked home. Her underwear was found beside her body and it was not stained with semen like her jeans.
Badgerow’s testimony is done and now the jury will come back a week Monday for final arguments and instructions from the judge. Then they deliberate.
